- 2 days ago
On this episode of RealTrending, Tracey Velt sit down with Thad Wong, founder and co-CEO of @properties Christie's International Real Estate, but under the Compass International Holdings umbrella, for a candid, wide-ranging conversation on the portal wars, national MLS, AI, brokerage scale and the future of data in real estate.
Thad lays out why he believes a broker-agnostic national MLS is the industry's biggest missed opportunity—and how selling realtor.com derailed that vision. He pulls no punches on Zillow’s strategy to replace the MLS, arguing that its free access to broker data and lack of fiduciary duty pose the largest existential threat he's seen in nearly 30 years.
We also dive into the Compass–@properties–Christie’s integration, how they’re blending tech stacks to create what Thad calls one of the strongest agent platforms in the country, and why agent adoption of technology is the make-or-break factor for brokerage margins. Finally, Thad explains how AI will amplify—not replace—high-EQ agents, enabling personalized service at scale and deeply tailored client communication instead of generic, one-size-fits-all marketing.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Why a broker‑agnostic national MLS could transform transparency, scale, and consumer experience in U.S. real estate.
How Zillow’s strategy may position it to replace the MLS and control key parts of the transaction.
How portal economics work—and why free data for portals but high fixed costs for brokerages squeeze margins.
What Compass, @properties, and Christie’s are doing to build a unified tech platform that agents actually adopt.
How AI can power hyper‑personalized client communication, and why high‑EQ agents will win in an AI-driven world.
Related to this episode:
Tracey Velt's LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/traceyvelt/
Thad Wong's LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thaddeuswong/
@properties
https://www.atproperties.com/lonestar
Christie's International
https://www.christiesrealestate.com/
Want more from Tracey? Don’t forget to subscribe to Real Estate Daily.
The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the lessons they’ve learned. Hos
Thad lays out why he believes a broker-agnostic national MLS is the industry's biggest missed opportunity—and how selling realtor.com derailed that vision. He pulls no punches on Zillow’s strategy to replace the MLS, arguing that its free access to broker data and lack of fiduciary duty pose the largest existential threat he's seen in nearly 30 years.
We also dive into the Compass–@properties–Christie’s integration, how they’re blending tech stacks to create what Thad calls one of the strongest agent platforms in the country, and why agent adoption of technology is the make-or-break factor for brokerage margins. Finally, Thad explains how AI will amplify—not replace—high-EQ agents, enabling personalized service at scale and deeply tailored client communication instead of generic, one-size-fits-all marketing.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Why a broker‑agnostic national MLS could transform transparency, scale, and consumer experience in U.S. real estate.
How Zillow’s strategy may position it to replace the MLS and control key parts of the transaction.
How portal economics work—and why free data for portals but high fixed costs for brokerages squeeze margins.
What Compass, @properties, and Christie’s are doing to build a unified tech platform that agents actually adopt.
How AI can power hyper‑personalized client communication, and why high‑EQ agents will win in an AI-driven world.
Related to this episode:
Tracey Velt's LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/traceyvelt/
Thad Wong's LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thaddeuswong/
@properties
https://www.atproperties.com/lonestar
Christie's International
https://www.christiesrealestate.com/
Want more from Tracey? Don’t forget to subscribe to Real Estate Daily.
The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the lessons they’ve learned. Hos
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NewsTranscript
00:00Today's guest on Real Trending is Thad Wong. He is the founder and co-CEO of App Properties,
00:08Christie's International Real Estate. And of course, they are part of Compass International
00:12Holdings now. We talked about a wide range of subjects, including the MRED Zillow Compass
00:19lawsuit, private listings, brokered scale, AI. It's a great far-reaching conversation,
00:26and I hope you enjoy the podcast.
00:40Thad, so great to have you on the Real Trending podcast.
00:43Thank you. It's awesome to be here. It's good to see you.
00:45Yeah, we're just going to jump right in after some tactical difficulties. So first, I want to talk to
00:53you about brokerage scale because, you know, the industry, obviously, with all of the consolidation
00:57happening, talks a lot about scale, but it's not all created equal. So what does good scale kind of
01:05look like in brokerage right now? You know, I think when we're talking about good scale, we need to be
01:11talking about industry scale. And what would be the best scaling opportunity in America would be if
01:16there were a national MLS that was broker agnostic, that followed NAR guidelines where the brokerage,
01:24the agent, the agent contact information was included on every single listing. If you asked
01:29me, that would be the best scale that the industry could focus on right now. It would solve a lot
01:34of
01:34problems. It would create a great opportunity for consumers. It would create the best transparency.
01:40And if you look just to the country to the north, Canada does a great job at doing that. And
01:46they
01:46discovered this a long time ago. And they're not having a lot of the issues that we're having today.
01:50So I would look to them and I'd look to improve it, as we always do in America. And I
01:55would come up
01:56with a brokerage agnostic national MLS that supported the industry and focused on the consumer.
02:03How realistic do you think that actually is, though?
02:06I think it's super realistic. I think if you look at the Achilles heel of NAR is that they sold
02:13Realtor.com to WorldCom. And had NAR had the foresight to say, okay, we've got Realtor.com.
02:20What a great name for a website. It has our customer, which is the real estate agent,
02:26embedded in the domain. And we made this our national MLS. If you look at the fees the agents
02:32pay into NAR, it's more than enough to coverage the cost of this. And we would be able to evolve
02:38and
02:38build the technology so we could offer the best consumer experience in buying and selling real
02:44estate in the world. That would have been the easiest thing to do. And after that was sold,
02:49there were a couple of opportunities upstream and some of these things that people did.
02:53But the problem was is that you had individual broker owners in all of these meetings. I was
02:58included in some of them. And the problem with that is you have greed that goes in there. How can
03:02I own this? How can I make money off of this? It's important that this is similar to an MLS
03:07where it's non-for-profit. And that needs to be the focus of the industry. If we did that,
03:12I don't know one reason not to do that. The only person that would not be interested
03:16in us doing that would be Zillow. Yeah. Well, that is true. I know that
03:22there have been calls for maybe CMLS to take up this project or some type of collaboration with the
03:30MLSs that makes it move closer to a national MLS. I don't know. They've got new leadership now. So
03:39we'll see what happens. Yeah. I'd say it's the greatest opportunity, but you're going to have
03:43to bring in a couple of entrepreneurs that come in and work on this. And it is easy. I mean,
03:49it would
03:49be, it is not difficult at all. And there are portals that you could acquire for a fair price that
03:56already have the infrastructure that you could build on. Yeah. Well, it'd be interesting. So,
04:01and let's kind of, we'll, we'll, um, I want to get back into that a little bit about the MRAD
04:06Zillow
04:06kind of compass situation. Um, and it's bigger than really one lawsuit. So tell me what you feel
04:13like that fight is really about. Well, at the end of the day, I think that the fight there is
04:18about
04:18Zillow's desire to replace the MLS. Uh, and some people might, you know, not look at it that way.
04:25I don't know how you can't. Anytime a private enterprise is trying to control a consumer
04:31experience, that's a problem. Anything that a consumer that owns privately, everything you own
04:37is yours. And any of a, you have an opportunity to sell that for what's most important to you.
04:42That might be price. That might be speed. That might be privacy, whatever it is. You should have that
04:47right. If I go to sell other major assets, if I sell a boat, I'm not required to put that
04:53boat in
04:53a certain way and sell it a certain way. If I'm selling things that might be more expensive than
04:58a haul, an airplane, uh, if I'm selling an airplane, I don't need to do it in one specific
05:03way to achieve one result that's dictated by a private entity. That's not dictated by rules,
05:09regulations, by a non-for-profit entities that support competition for the consumer experience that in
05:15itself, that is a giant red herring that everyone should pay attention to. So that's what this is
05:20really about. Zillow tried to, and is trying to, and might win by the way, try to flex its consumer
05:26power to change the way a consumer is able to sell their home. Yeah. And, and you've talked,
05:34you've kind of argued that pre-listing or pre-market listings, that whole fight is really about
05:39transparency alone. So what do you think really gets missed in that public debate about it?
05:45Money. I think that there was only a public debate because there's an opportunity to make money.
05:51If there wasn't an opportunity to make money, there would be no debate because this is logical.
05:55If I am a homeowner and I am an American and I have the freedom and choice to operate within
06:01the body
06:02of laws that I need to operate within, and I want to sell something, there is no, there are very
06:08few
06:08rules. If I sell my car, I need to make sure that the odometer is correct and that information is
06:13correct. But I can put a sign in the window. I can post it on cars.com. There are no
06:18regulations
06:19on how I can sell my property. So, you know, I don't see how, when people are looking at this
06:26and they're trying to save this last, the Zillow listing acceptable rules and structure,
06:31I can't have this because somehow it's harming things. That's a ruse. We all know that. That's just
06:37Zillow's argument to try to control data and eventually replace the MLS. Zillow wants to be
06:43that national MLS, that national broker or broker agnostic site. But if you can imagine for a
06:49second, what Zillow would do as a for-profit company operating as the MLS, well, they would
06:55set guidelines in place that generate greater revenue for their shareholders. No doubt. They might
07:01say, you have to put your property for sale on this date. You cannot sign a contract for five days
07:06until everybody has a chance to see it. That could be their thesis. And the only reason they're doing
07:10that is to try to monetize that asset even further. So it is the greatest existential threat
07:17I'd say I've seen in my almost 30 years in brokerage. And I think agents are now waking up
07:22and realizing, you know, how impactful this could be. Yeah. I mean, it's really interesting because
07:28the argument over Zillow has been going on for years. You know, they're taking my information and
07:33selling it back to me. Um, I feel like that ship has sailed at this point. Um, you know,
07:39they're, they're a pro their company. They, you know, it's, it's capitalism, right? They have a
07:44right to make money too. Um, and, and so the whole, it's, it's really an interesting because
07:51as, as a, also as a public company, Compass has a right to, we were Compass International Holdings,
07:56I should say has a right to make money and do business the way they choose as well. Um, so
08:03it is a really interesting, you know, when you hear both sides of it, it really is fascinating.
08:08And like, in your view, what do you think the responsibility, um, an MLS has to brokers and
08:16consumers and then competing business models kind of when those interests collide?
08:21Yeah, I want to, if we go back for a second, when we talk about the business models, think about
08:26it
08:26also as like, anytime you have a business where you're selling something or you're generating
08:29information, you have a cost for that product. So if I'm selling suits, I pay wholesale and I sell
08:36for retail. The incredible thing here is that Zillow has zero cost to its asset, its data,
08:44its information that agents are sending in. And I don't know of any other business model that I can
08:49compare that to where they get the actual product for free and then can use it to monetize it and
08:55sell it. So that, that is something that seems bizarre to me is that they can make money and
09:00monetize the asset, but there's no one charging them for the data that they're receiving to do that.
09:05So when we think about that, then that's almost an unfair advantage, correct? Because a brokerage has
09:11fixed costs ad nauseum. You know, if you look at brokerage margins and you say, wow,
09:16why are their margins so small? If you look at their investment in physical space,
09:20if you look at their investment in technology, training and coaching, marketing, culture,
09:26you know, contract admin, accounting, there are a laundry list of costs there. It's hard to compete
09:31when a company has zero costs when it comes to their greatest asset, which is the data.
09:36Brokerage's greatest asset is the agent. Very different.
09:40Yeah, absolutely. And I'm going to change the conversation a little bit. I want to talk about,
09:46you know, you've gone through kind of a major strategic shift with Compass acquiring App
09:51Properties and Christie's International Real Estate. So tell me how that integration has been
09:57and what's kind of changed? What stays the same? What should people understand about
10:02the process that you went through?
10:04So, you know, most things when it comes to the strategy have stayed the same. I think we are
10:09very, very aligned in that strategy is based on improving the consumer experience by improving
10:16the agent deliverables through marketing, training, and coaching, and most importantly, technology.
10:23We had a tech stack called Platform. They have a tech stack. They took the best of both.
10:29They already had a really incredible contract to close system and they improved that to what is
10:36arguably the best technology opportunity for agents to plug into in America because it brings
10:42value to the consumer before the contract and it continues to bring value to the consumer
10:47post-closing. So strategically, we were totally aligned and we were able to dig in and just create
10:53these improvements really, really quickly. Some of the process things have changed in the sense that
10:59the way we do things in our back end that nobody sees and agents really don't feel.
11:04So that's the good news. I would say that, you know, I give it a A minus because they've really
11:10allowed us to continue our entrepreneurial spirit, which I think is what they acquired,
11:15is that vision and forethought, that forward thinking to make sure the consumer has a better
11:19experience. And they allow us to do our thing. And that has been really, really great while at the
11:24same time giving us a tremendous amount of support. So there are some strange things that I had to move
11:30to Gmail. That was one that that's what gives it the minus because I really loved Outlook. But other
11:37than that, you know, it's been a year plus and it's pretty smooth. It feels good. I feel like we've
11:43created a lot of cool new things and I feel like our agents are happy. I'm feeling good.
11:47I should move directly to Gmail. I'm on Outlook now and I'm on the legacy Outlook. I can't move to
11:53the new Outlook. I need those folders. Same, same, same. So yeah. So when you think about what the
12:02brokerage industry needs to get better at, if it wants to really protect margins and still deliver
12:08premium agent and consumer experience, what are some of those things that you think about?
12:13Yeah, I think for any brokerage, it has everything to do with adoption. Whatever it is that the value,
12:20and this is the beautiful thing about the market, is that all these brokerages bring different value
12:24propositions to compete for the independent contractor. And if our value proposition, let's say,
12:30is tech number one, we need to focus on adoption. If agents are utilizing our tech to improve the consumer
12:37experience, they see value in the product that we're offering and they're willing to pay us for that.
12:42If you're another brokerage and you are all marketing, and then you need to make sure the
12:47agents are using that marketing to improve their product to the consumer. That's the way we do it.
12:53You know, there are a lot of things, a handful of things, and every agent has a different bucket
12:58that's more important to them. Some, it's all culture. So your office experiences, the personal
13:03relationship with their local leadership, their relationship with ownership, that's a big piece
13:08of it. Others, it's aesthetics, it's marketing. And I combine marketing now is social media. I don't
13:14think they're too separate anymore. I think one reinforces the other. And so we might offer great
13:19social media and marketing opportunities for agents, and that's why they're here. But I would say
13:23that the glue, which is going to be the most important 10 years from now, if not, I'd say 10
13:29years
13:29ago is the technology. If agents are on your tech and using it in every facet of their consumer
13:36experience, they demand, they have strong demand in the product that you're offering. And if you're
13:41perpetually improving that experience with updates and uploads that are getting even better opportunities
13:46and experiences for the consumer through the agent, that's how the agent differentiates themselves.
13:51And that's what creates competition out there in the market. That's what Compass and I were
13:56doing for a long time. When I say I, the Royal Ad Properties, we were competing locally. Now we're
14:02competing with Baird and Warner. We're competing with, you know, Remax or EXP or Keller Williams. And we're
14:08all doing things to compete for that independent contractor. And so adoption would be number one. Whatever
14:14you're focusing on as a brokerage, make sure your agents value that. And so, I mean, you had pretty
14:19great tech to begin with. So how much did you integrate of Compass's tech into your platform and
14:26how did you work that out? So they have a couple of cool things. One is collections. It's a fantastic
14:32buyer's tool. I say that one is probably the best one in the market. I would argue we had the
14:38best
14:38listing presentation digitally in the market. We're going to retain that. So we kind of looked through
14:44all of it and figured out, you know, how we could combine them. But then what we did, which I
14:49think
14:49was more important is we looked at it and we said, okay, we raised the chalkboard and said, what are
14:53we
14:53missing? What's next? And so we've got a four year plus plan of new products that we're continuously
15:00rolling out because I always say that if you're not exciting the agent about what's to come, you get
15:06them on strong adoption for also what is coming. And if you have more products that you're launching that
15:12are going to improve the customer, that actually communicate directly with the customer and that's
15:17getting improved with AI, you know, then agents are excited to get on your tech every day.
15:23Yeah, absolutely. And Kyle, let's get into a little bit of AI. You went to the Christie's International
15:27Real Estate Owners Conference. It was within Lisbon and I know AI was a major theme there. So what stood
15:35out to
15:36you in those conversations? You know, as I listened to it and we dove pretty deep, I would say that,
15:44you know,
15:45the consumer is thirsting even more for that close personal relationship. Everything we do on a daily basis is
15:52being automated. Everything. And when you talk about buying or selling a home, there's a lot of anxiety in that.
15:59And it's tough to have technology reduce anxiety. It's tough to build. You can, as much as you use it
16:06and rely on it,
16:07trust is a weird thing, right? It's hard to, I don't know, do you really trust tech? I'm not sure.
16:12But you do trust
16:13people and you do trust relationships. And so I think that the agents that have the absolute best EQ are
16:20going to have a
16:21better competitive advantage as AI integrates into our business. Like I would say to all of my agents right now,
16:27if the one
16:28thing that I would focus on would be public speaking, how can I, and I would say improv, like how
16:34can you
16:34just feel comfortable communicating with people in tough situations? That's what builds trust. And I
16:40think that that's what's most desirable right now from the broker, from the consumer. I don't think it is
16:46going to eliminate the agent in any way. I think it will accentuate the agent and make them more valuable
16:52because the agent will be able to, earlier in the podcast, we talked about scale and I was talking
16:57about industry scale. I would say AI is going to help with personalized service scale. The best
17:04agents are going to plug in to personalize their service at scale so they can communicate very
17:09closely and transparently with more people, building greater referrals and more business.
17:15So from a brokerage perspective, what does that mean? What do you build to help them do that?
17:20Well, on our end, you know, when I talk about personal scale, communication and information,
17:25whatever it is that's important to that, here's the easy one. So right now agents create monthly
17:30email newsletters, right? It's a way to get their brand in front of the consumer to remind them that
17:35they sell real estate. Now let's say for instance, let's say we are Christie's International Real Estate.
17:41We have a very close tie to the auction house. We can send an easy survey to each client.
17:46Do you like handbags? Do you like watches? Do you like art? What type of art do you like?
17:50The more we know about a customer, the more we can create marketing directly that is important
17:57and applicable to that customer. Oftentimes customers just see the agent logo and that's
18:01all they're trying to do, like a postcard. But imagine if you can provide greater value
18:06to a customer's life. This makes that so much easier, having a profile in your CRM and a customized
18:14communication directly for every single person in your CRM. That's what I would say would be agent scale.
18:19That's something everybody should be working on. We no longer, there's going to become a time,
18:24I don't know if it's today, it could be next week, maybe last till next year, where every time you
18:29get
18:29one of those monthly emails, you're like almost insulted, right? You're like, this person doesn't
18:36know me. They don't know what I like. They're sending me things that I have no interest in.
18:40It's almost working against them. This is going to be, AI is going to be able to actually provide
18:46greater value by not insulting the person that sends them something they have no interest in.
18:51No, I totally agree. I mean, if you sent me something that made it seem like you actually
18:57knew me, I would be much more likely to respond to that than just the generic, you know, newsletter
19:03messages that you get. So yeah.
19:06Best Christie's agents send links to products that are being auctioned. So when you go through
19:11someone's house and you might notice, I don't know, a piece of art, Damien Hirst, let's say,
19:16they have a spot painting and you can see a Damien Hirst collection and you could, if I sent you
19:21an
19:22email and I said, Hey, I just saw this, I thought you'd love looking through some of these pieces,
19:26you would feel valued because it's something you actually have an interest in. Whereas if I just send
19:32you some basic piece of marketing that anybody and everybody, I always said this, if I'm marketing
19:39the same way as everybody else, I'm no different than anybody else.
19:42Yeah. What do you think are the biggest mistakes that really, let's say brokerages make when it
19:48comes to implementing AI within the brokerage?
19:52You know what? I think that's a good question. I think right now people are still in that entry
19:57phase, unless that's what they've really mastered over the years. Everybody is kind of coming to
20:01terms with integrating something brand new. So I think it's hard. I wouldn't really put that on
20:07anyone because instead I'd say good for you for trying something different and new and you're
20:12focused on the right thing. And that is AI. And I wouldn't shame anybody because they, you know,
20:18tried something and didn't work in AI right now because we're all learning. And in the industry,
20:23one thing I would hope is that AI has such significant power that, you know, I wish right now
20:30how we had the, like, we all have our leaders, right? In CIH, we have Robert. Robert is our leader,
20:38period. And REMAX, I don't know who the leader is. Keller Williams, you have Gary Keller.
20:44EXP, you have Glenn. And so these are the leaders. You know, I would almost hope that the leaders would
20:53focus on, or whether it's the MLS as we go back to a brokerage agnostic website for the industry.
20:59There are a couple of things around AI that should be used universally the same by every
21:05brokerage. And I normally would rely on NAR for doing that, but NAR has not, NAR has had a lot
21:12of problems. Let's just say that over the last 10 years. So I don't think anybody is relying on NAR
21:17for much of anything right now, but I wish we had a really strong NAR and NAR was really leading
21:22our
21:22industry right now. We could all feel good about it and support it.
21:28Yeah. So with everything going on, you know, we've got consolidation, we've got portal pressure,
21:34we've got private listing debates, we've got AI adoption, we've got a lot of legal uncertainty.
21:39It's all happening at the same time, but what forces do you see changing, having the possibility
21:45to change the industry the most? You know, I hate going back to this, but you know,
21:51the portal wars by far, you know, this is, if you're not awake, wake up. You know, that's what
21:57this is about. This is this pivotal moment in our industry where agents, brokerages, and local
22:05non-for-profit MLSs drive competition to benefit the consumer, or Zillow wins, Zillow has all the data
22:14and directs the process in which homes are bought and sold in America. That's it. That's it. And
22:22for those people that are in support of Zillow, there is an ulterior motive. There is. They're
22:28either getting something from Zillow because no agent out there in their right mind, not even
22:34Best Friedman in New York, after she's seeing all this, can actually say, yeah, I trust Zillow.
22:40Let's give our data to Zillow. Let's put Zillow in control. Let's see what happens. Zillow is in
22:45control in New York, by the way, with Street Easy. And what happened was, is Zillow went agent by agent,
22:51brokerage to brokerage, and got all the feeds. And rental listings then, you know, were no charge. And
22:57then, or they were a dollar. They were a dollar. The next year they went to two, a day. The
23:03next year
23:03they went to three, a day. Now they are at $8 a day. So it's $240 a month to list
23:11your apartment
23:12for rent on Street Easy. That is a private for-profit company that is wildly squeezing
23:20the revenue out of an industry. So when you talk about brokerage margins, and agents love their
23:26brokerages. Contrary to popular belief, when it comes to negotiating their split, the agent has the
23:31right to negotiate their split. But if you ask the agent if their brokerage provides value, it's
23:36really high. It's really high. So agents love their brokerages. They love their colleagues. They
23:40love the industry in which they work in. It's just like a lot of things. They're just blind when it
23:45comes to what actually is happening in the background. And they don't really see. Zillow is an AI company.
23:52Zillow wants all the data. Zillow wants to control the transaction to extract all the revenue.
23:57So I would say at the end of the day, that is, you know, when you talk about, you know,
24:02planet Earth
24:03or anything, you talk about global warming, you talk about these existential threats that are going
24:07to effectively change everything forever. That's what this is. And people are so busy servicing their
24:14clients that they're, a lot of them not paying attention, but I do think they're waking up. I do.
24:18Yeah. Like I said, it's an interesting conversation. And I do feel like there are voices that aren't
24:25in the conversation that should be. I'm going to leave it at that. But, but yeah, so that's,
24:32it is really interesting. And so there's, and that kind of leads to the conversation of really
24:37data control and data sovereignty. How much of this is about data control from either side?
24:45I don't think it's about data control for brokerages. It's about privacy for consumers.
24:50Okay. When you feed that data, like for instance, MLS feed to Zillow has protections on that data.
24:58Okay. When the MLS, the M, I shouldn't say M, the MRED feed got cut off from Zillow and all
25:04of a sudden
25:05Zillow didn't have many listings. Companies like Berkshire Hathaway and Keller Williams signed direct
25:11fees to Zillow. In that language, what they did for their clients, by the way, without asking them
25:17their permission, they gave 100% sovereignty to the data rights to Zillow. When they gave them that
25:23feed effectively, what they said is all data associated with this home, you can have in
25:27perpetuity for free. I don't think any seller that was with, uh, I don't know that I think,
25:33I know it Keller Williams and Berkshire. I'm not sure if the XP, they probably did. I don't think
25:37any seller would ever have agreed to that. Would you? No, you own your home. You would never agree
25:43to that for no reason, nobody. And so that's what we're talking about when it comes to data.
25:49Brokerages in, in listing a home, they're there to service the customer in the best sale of that
25:54home, but they're not harvesting that data of that home to monetize it or force any sort of industry
26:00policy. That's just not happening. They're solely focused on, um, you know, uh, using that data,
26:07using the information in the moment for the best interest of the client. And I would say the number
26:11one difference here is what is the one thing that an agent has responsibility for their customer
26:16that Zillow doesn't? It's fiduciary duty, right? Fiduciary duty is associated with everything we do
26:22for the end consumer in America. Zillow has zero fiduciary duty. So if you're a capitalist and you
26:29have a product like Zillow and you have no fiduciary duty to your customer, imagine what you're going to
26:33do with that data. Yeah. Well, we talk a lot about Zillow, but there are other portals, um, you know,
26:38and you've got homes.com, you got realtor.com and now you've got, um, with house canary and come
26:44here, come home, sorry, come home. Um, you know, what, what about them? Um, you know, what are they
26:52doing right? Different to Zillow or what are they doing wrong? They're not forcing policy. There's
26:57no such thing as the realtor.com listing agent regulation or whatever's last is, you know,
27:03homes.com is not trying to flex on the industry and say, you have to do it my way. Otherwise
27:08we
27:09won't participate. They're actually abiding by the rules and regulations set by MRED, uh, to participate
27:15in IDX and vow. And let's be honest, Zillow is not a brokerage. They're not like us. They are not
27:20like
27:21us, period. They are not a brokerage. They are not driving customers around looking for homes.
27:25They're not consoling sellers getting ready to sell a home because of a family loss. They're not involved
27:31in the transaction at all. They're almost the furthest thing from a brokerage yet. They're
27:35having all the rights because of the IDX feed as a brokerage does that has to earn those every day
27:41by providing value to the consumer. And so at the end of the day, I think the, the argument is
27:47pretty
27:48transparent here that, uh, you know, Zillow is not in the best interest of the consumer.
27:53They're in the best interest of their shareholder. And that is solely because of fiduciary duty.
27:57Okay. So, um, this is kind of like an overarching final question, but like, if you were advising a
28:05broker owner who kind of feels overwhelmed by all of these things from AI to consolidation,
28:10to portal pressure, to the legal changes, um, what would you tell them to focus on?
28:17Right now, I'd say it's depending on their age.
28:20Yeah. When I got started, I was 30. Uh, and I had, uh, I don't want to say a lot
28:27more energy,
28:27but I had more energy and I had probably more confidence because I hadn't gotten beaten up a
28:32couple of times in the industry. Uh, and so that, that's a really good question. I would say,
28:38first of all, I'm going to say we need them, you know, like, like the Thad Wong in 2000 and
28:44the Mike
28:44Golden in 2000 that partnered up to start a brokerage with a vision. We need that. And we
28:49need that because we need competition in the industry so we can improve what we're delivering
28:54to the consumer. So I don't want them to go away. You know, I love entrepreneurs and I love ideas.
28:59I think that if you look back, um, and I often talk about Redfin. So Redfin, in my opinion, has
29:06the best user experience, uh, the best search. I use Redfin in the country. They produce the absolute
29:13best product and they tried, uh, to go, uh, uh, a different model. They said, we don't want agents
29:20that are employees. We want to be independent contract or we want to be employees and we're
29:24going to pay them a salary. And we're going to offer that product to the market at half,
29:29half off. We'll charge half and they have the best experience. And we all know how it ended up.
29:35They never, they launched in Seattle before Zillow. They never got over 3.6% market share. Um,
29:40and they were never to be ever able to make it work. And that's because the consumer continuously
29:45chose an independent contractor agent that had multiple ways through competing with other
29:50agents to market their home. That was the preference of the market, but Redfin did drive
29:55competition. So even though it's failed and it part as succeeding as a brokerage, I think it's
30:00a plus as a search portal, but as a brokerage, it failed. It improved us dramatically. I created
30:06full curriculum on how our agents could speak to consumers about Redfin. Like same thing as compass
30:12compass came to town. It improved us in every part of our game. So long story, I don't mean to
30:18be so
30:18long-winded, but it's a tough question. What would, I would have them focus on their belief and idea that
30:23they feel they can make a difference in the best interest of the consumer. I don't know what that
30:27is, but if they have a really good idea, they should call me. Great. Well, thank you Thad for
30:37joining the Real Training Podcast. It's always a pleasure to have you on. It's a pleasure to be
30:43here. Call me anytime. Yes, absolutely.
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